It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a place to meet and share what you have been and are about to be reading over the week. It’s a great post to organize yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit, comment, and add to your groaning TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started on J Kaye’s blog and then was hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at The Book Date.

Jen Vincent, Teach Mentor Texts, and Kellee of Unleashing Readers decided to give It’s Monday! a kid-lit focus. If you read and review books in children’s literature – picture books, chapter books, middle-grade novels, young adult novels, or anything in those genres – join them.

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Personal:

• I am sick of this hot weather. Not only is it hot, but it is humid, and it makes it very difficult to be outside for any length of time. We usually rely on afternoon thunderstorms to cool everything off in the evenings, but those haven’t happened either.
• Considering what I said above, we did have severe storms roll through last Monday. Two tornados touched down that were part of the storms (they didn’t touch down here). My gazebo (which has survived everything) was a casualty of this storm. We have had a few huge branches fall. Thankfully, our city collects yard waste weekly, so the branches and such were handled.
• The countdown to school is getting real. Miss B has senior pictures at the end of this week, and next week, Mr. Z will pick up his Chromebook, and Miss R has her Sneak Peek.
• Miss R is back to riding!! I won’t get into the whole story, but she hasn’t had lessons between rain, last week’s storm, and her barn moving. She was so thrilled to be back riding.

Reading

• I am right on track for where I want to be, reading-wise. I have made a huge dent in my ARCs from NetGalley. I am almost halfway through my author requests books too. Sticking to a schedule has helped a lot. Reading/reviewing on weekdays and reading what I want on weekends works for me.
• I am on track with reviews also, which rarely happens. Again, I set up a schedule and forced myself to stick to it. I average about 4-5 reviews a week (with some scheduled later in the year).
• Unfortunately, I am not doing that great with my reading challenges. I think I will only finish a couple of the challenges. But it’s alright. I knew I had overextended myself. Next year will be different.

Cooking

• I didn’t cook anything last week. This damn weather is just too hot for cooking. We ate a lot of salads, cold cuts, and pizza.
• Even though I didn’t cook last week, I am cooking this week. I am making chicken parm, two pasta recipes, and a quick beef goulash.

So, that’s my catch-up.

Anything exciting or different happen this week?

Make anything good this past week, or plan on making it this week?

Read anything new?

Read anything on this list?

Let me know!!

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What I am Reading Now:

A woman uploads her DNA online, searching for her father–but the man who contacts her is Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens. From the acclaimed author of Little Sister, this endlessly twisty crime novel asks: What might a family do to protect or expose a serial killer in its midst?

When the police found the first body, left on a bonfire in the fields, they worried it had the hallmarks of a serial killer.

Now, as they find the second, they know for sure.

Panic about the “bonfire killer” quickly spreads through the sedate, suburban area of Southampton. Women are urged not to travel alone at night, and constant vigilance is encouraged among the local residents. But single mom Aisling Cooley has a lot to distract her: two beloved teenage sons and a quest to find her long-lost father, whom she hasn’t seen since she was a teenager growing up in Ireland.

After much debate she decides to upload her DNA to an ancestry website, and when she gets a match she is filled with an anxious excitement, that her questions about her father’s disappearance from her life might finally be answered.

But to her horror, it’s not her father who’s found her. It’s a detective.

And they say her DNA is a close match for the bonfire killer…

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Books I plan on reading later this week:

Two years together.

Twenty years apart.

One day to change their story.

2000. Benjamin’s world is turned upside down the day he meets Clara. Instinctively, he knows that she is his person and he is hers, but a devastating mistake on one of their last nights at university will take their lives in very different directions.

20 years later, an explosion is reported in the city where Clara and Ben met, and she is pulled back to a place she tries not to remember and the first love she could never forget. Searching for Ben, Clara prays that twenty years of silence is about to end.

But is it too late to put right what went wrong?

Tabby Winslow will help her twin sister Sage with anything and everything—and that includes putting out the flames of suspicion when Sage’s boss is found murdered in this magical mystery, perfect for fans of Amanda Flower and Sofie Kelly.

December in Savannah, Georgia, is a sight to behold. With all the festivities—including the traditional riverfront luminary display during the boat parade—twin sisters Tabby and Sage Winslow are busier than ever setting up for the big celebration. But that isn’t the only thing on the sisters’ minds. Both Sage and her fellow employee Mary Nicole are vying for the sought-after assistant manager job at the plant nursery. But when Loren Lee, their boss, is found dead, and Sage becomes the police’s favorite suspect, both Winslow girls know that they’ll need more than a flicker of magic and their sisterhood to solve the murder and clear Sage’s name.

Soon, Tabby realizes that this is just one of the many problems they have. If being a suspect for murder wasn’t enough, there are more magical problems that they have to fix: Sage’s boyfriend is having a paranormal experience of his own he can’t control, there’s an energy vampire searching for his supposedly lost cousin, and oh—every time Tabby hiccups, she turns completely invisible. The suspect list grows with each day and it seems everyone has a reason or a connection to Loren Lee. 

Tabby and Sage are burning the candle at both ends—but will it be enough to keep their friends safe and find this killer? Or will they be burned by their efforts?